A 900 Years Carrols
by Diana Prallon
Summary: The Doctor had his own Christmas Ghosts to face. Drabble Collection
1. The Answer

**The Answer**

It was never a simple question – how do you choose? The Doctor hated the very idea of having to choose (which was a normal part of being able to travel in time). And the broken, sad, hopeless voice of that old man crashing through his ears like waves of those untamed skies, rolling inside him like a tsunami, destroying all the barriers he worked so hard to keep.

He was an old man himself, even if he was always a new man. He lived too much, he saw too much. He had seem everything in life, death and every range between both. He was, as Kazran, always halfway out of the dark, scared of falling back in.

The last day with your beloved, he kept on asking. How do you choose?

It wasn't a simple question for anyone. But it was even worse for The Doctor, for he had been in that position for too many times before, and still could never find an answer.

He had his own ghosts.


	2. The Ghosts of Christmas Past

**The Ghost of Christmas Past**

It wasn't Christmas; it wasn't any sort of special day. He wasn't expecting it, he could never choose it. The choice wasn't his to make, not this time. She was all grown up now, his little Susan. A woman, ready to drive her own life to wherever she pleased, no longer a child.

There weren't tearful farewells, he didn't expect it would take a long time to meet her again. He could always pop by for a visit. He would have ages for that, years, and so would she. The link between them would never break.

It was just a "see you later", he thought. He never knew he wouldn't see her again, not like this, not with this grumpy old face, like an annoying and beloved grandfather. He wouldn't see her again with her young, happy face, so in love and so hopeful.

He didn't realize he was losing her forever. So she just walked away, with his blessing.

He never chose that.


	3. The Ghost of Christmas Present

**The Ghost of Christmas Present**

Christmas was the first place he ever took her. Where they had first been together, looked into each other eyes, held hands and smiled like the whole of the universe was safe as long as they were together.

So many goodbyes, they had had. Jumping into the dark to face that unknown, the fear itself, the idea of never returning, trapped in the end of the universe. Unexpected, heart-breaking, empty goodbyes over white walls, with tears that wouldn't come or stop. Sentences that never ended, while supernovas burned in an attempt to make it right, to make it clear, to finally say it. Walking away knowing that had given her more than he could actually give, accepting that he would never be enough for her, and that she deserved more, much more than a half-life. He had to face that, he had to walk away, knowing that the words he chocked, that he feared to say out loud, where robbing him of her forever, for her own sake.

Still, he couldn't stop himself from coming back again, from looking at her one last time on the eve of being a new man. And even with a new body and a new mind, Rose Tyler's smile was carved into his hearts, an painful reminder of all the love he could never have, still strong enough to keep him away from any other person. Still a ghost in his eyes when he looked back at Kazran, thinking about her and all those days he couldn't undo.

All the choices he could never make, and would always regret.


	4. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come

**The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come**

He had read Kazran's answer in someone else eyes, though. Those shine, witty, flirty eyes that looked into his with love, pain and despair. She had made the choice, not him, and he hated it. He wanted her to allow him the sacrifice, the pain, for the sake of her life – not because he loved her, but because he knew he would one day. She'd be the one he trusted above anyone else, except for himself.

She wouldn't allow it, she wouldn't have it. She wanted her life fully lived as she had lived it, she'd never accept a change like the one's he brought to that old man. She had chosen the day he knew her no longer, the day when the love didn't exist anymore – or yet – to be her last one.

One day, he knew, it would be his time to choose the last day of the woman he was yet to love with a fierce feeling that nothing could match. And, watching the couple enjoying their last day, he wondered how he could do that once again. Losing some so important, so full of energy, that turned his life into a unique song, full of expectation, of colors, of emotions flowing freely and pouring into his days like a golden thread, luring him in.

That was in the future. For now, he'd be ok.


	5. The Question

**The Question**

The only thing left to wonder was whether it would ever stop. Those painful choices, unexpected goodbyes. Maybe it would end just when he ended, himself, when death finally came to him once and for all.

And that would be, also, a pain to deal with. Someone else was going to feel the fact that he was gone for good, and suffer. And while he couldn't avoid that, he also couldn't worry about that as well.

His life had already too many questions unanswered, and this was just another one to add to the pile.

Walking inside the TARDIS, he pretend none of this had came back to haunt him and focused on the next destination.

Keep on moving, like he always did.


End file.
